Report: NHL, NHLPA to Announce New CBA Framework

The NHL and NHL Players' Association are set to reveal the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, with some major changes.

Jon Alfano | Jun 26, 2025

National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman speaks to the media before game one of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final. / Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn Images

The NHL and NHL Players' Association have been hard at work on their new Collective Bargaining Agreement for months, if not longer, and it appears they're now in the home stretch.

According to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, the two sides are "putting the final touches" on a Memorandum of Understanding for a four-year extension to the CBA. If both sides sign off, the framework of the new CBA could be announced ahead of the NHL Draft on Friday. A formal ratification process would then follow, but Seravalli doesn't believe it will be an issue, noting that commissioner Gary Bettman gave the Board of Governors a "extensive" update on Wednesday.

The new CBA would take effect on Sept. 16, 2026, and run through Sept. 15, 2030, providing the league with five years of labor peace.

Some major changes would come along with this new CBA. Most notably, the NHL would move to an 84-game regular season, which the league briefly adopted in the early 90s before moving to 82 after just two seasons. The preseason would be shortened to four games as a result, and players with at least 100 games of NHL experience can play in two preseason games at most.

Another big change is player contracts being limited to a maximum of seven years for players re-signing with their current teams and six for free agents, down from eight and seven years, respectively. Also on the contract front, there will be a "comprehensive playoff salary cap mechanism," which would "effectively close" the controversial LTIR loophole that allowed teams to ice lineups over the cap in the postseason. Deferred salary, which previously allowed teams to lower cap hits in the short term, would also be outlawed.

Finally for the major changes, teams would hold signing rights to draft picks until age 22 regardless of the league they come from.

If all goes according to plan, the NHL and NHLPA would have unprecedented labor peace for the next half decade, and that's something worth celebrating.

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Published Jun 26, 2025

JON ALFANO

Jon is a lead writer for Baltimore Ravens On SI and contributes to other sites around the network as well. The Tampa native previously worked with sites such as ClutchPoints and GiveMeSport and earned his journalism degree at the University of Central Florida.